


Storm's Coming

by 55vre55



Category: National Theatre, Treasure Island - Lavery, Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Based off the National Theatre production, F/M, Female Jim Hawkins, National Theatre - Freeform, Pirates, Ten Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23834359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/55vre55/pseuds/55vre55
Summary: Her nightmares are different now.
Relationships: Jim Hawkins & John Silver, Jim Hawkins/John Silver, Jim Hawkins/Long John Silver
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	Storm's Coming

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I watch professional recordings of live theatre on my phone in the dark at 2am and then ruminate on them for two days straight when I'm supposed to be working from home.
> 
> Based on the 2015 National Theatre production of Treasure Island with Arthur Darvill and Patsy Ferran, recently broadcast online as part of their National Theatre At Home series. I imagine this takes place roughly ten years after the events shown on stage.
> 
> As always, only mildly edited by yours truly. Constructive criticism always welcome!

Her nightmares are different now.

Before, the one-legged man had haunted her. Before the map, and the ship, and the island, before everything that happened—

Before all that, the one-legged man was a dark figure, stalking her in her dreams. Threatening to destroy the only life she’d ever known. He was Billy Bones’ words, twisted up inside her and keeping her awake at night, terrified of what he could do.

Now, though. After.

That one-legged man, who had frightened her and threatened her and taken everything from her—

After, he still haunts her.

After, her nightmares are just about what happened to him.

Down there in the dark and the dirt, with the crashing of rock and treasure above. With nothing at all like the sea below. Trapped on land like a fish.

Before, she had never dreamed of being at sea. After, she finds that she’s not so much a landlubber anymore.

He wasn’t a landlubber either.

For him to die, just like that, buried in the earth, without the wind in his face or salt in his mouth—

Well.

That explains the nightmares.

She tries to be content with her life, to focus on the inn and the customers and forget the nightmares. And if she occasionally walks out to the cliff-side, to feel the wind caressing her cheeks and whipping through her hair, that’s no one’s business but her own.

Grandma is long gone now. The Squire and the Doctor each have their own lives. She still gets letters from Ben on occasion, long and rambling things that take her days to understand before responding. She had thought she’d marry him, once, were it not for the shadow of a one-legged man stretching between them.

Ben had been so scared of him. She wonders what’s wrong with her, that she’s not.

Once, she walks out to the cliff in the middle of a storm. It’s freeing and terrifying at the same time, but nothing at all like that storm. The storm. Nothing like when she had been claimed, with him warm at her back and refusing to let the sea take her. She doesn’t remember starting to cry there on the cliff, but her face is wet long after the storm ceases.

That is the only time she cries, after.

It is far from the only time she mourns.

She knows the townsfolk tell tales about her. They’ve always told tales about her. That’s one thing that stays the same, before and after.

But she keeps her inn clean and comfortable, and so they come, never mind the odd way she dresses or speaks. The inn prospers, coaxed into full potential thanks to the gold that Ben had stuffed into her pockets and bags.

She hadn’t been able to touch it, after what it had done to—

The gold is long spent now, and the inn prospers, and most of the time she finds she enjoys it, even as she misses the feel of the deck rocking beneath her. An inn is just like a stationary ship, after all.

She can’t help but listen to the stories the customers tell. Local gossip for the most part. An occasional visit from an outsider, telling tales of happenings in London. Rarely, oh so rarely, someone from even farther, with tales of pirates and battles and adventure.

Before the before, before Billy Bones, her ears perked up at such stories. She thought she would be tired of such adventures, now. After.

But she can’t help but listen, hoping for his name to be dropped—

But that’s silly.

He’s dead.

Dead and buried underground, far from the sea.

Far from her.

She’d gotten her hopes up too high tonight, listening to a boisterous group of sailors bragging about the latest skirmish they’d been in. Her hands shake as she wipes down tables and clears glasses, and she tries to focus on the trembling rather than her thoughts.

She’s not even sure why she misses him so much. He’d used her and betrayed her and—

And taught her. Comforted her. Helped her find her sea legs. Showed her who she could be.

He’d stolen her first kiss.

She couldn’t even resent him for that.

She realizes now, he was probably the one person she’d been closest to her entire life, even though she’d only known him for a few months. It was a few months of constantly being in his presence, dancing around each other in the galley, sleeping in the bunk next to his. She listened to his stories and he listened to hers. She told him things she never even told Grandma. She’s never had that with anyone else. Before or after.

The inn is still, everyone else either home for the night or asleep in the rooms upstairs. She is the only thing that moves, ghosting through the bar like a phantom.

Perhaps that is why she hears the shuffling, faint as it is with rain drizzling outside. Perhaps it is something else, now, after so long that she has not heard it, has been waiting to hear it. But it sounds so much like—

Like his footsteps.

Her heart, treacherous thing, surges in her chest and she has to stifle a sound that might be a laugh and might be a sob. Her feet are frozen as she stares at the door.

A muffled tap, and then it is carefully pushed open.

She almost doesn’t recognize him. Clothes that are ragged, but not dirty; his beautiful long hair shorn close. Most of all, his leg—

The wooden leg is gone.

He leans on his crutch instead, listing to one side as he struggles with the heavy door. A moment later, she realizes he is struggling despite his missing leg, not because of it. His hand—

Her feet unfreeze and she lurches forward, pulling open the door so he no longer has to push at it with the arm that is now missing a hand. He stumbles slightly, unbalanced, and her own hand darts out towards him for a moment before freezing, a breath away from his chest.

She’s afraid to touch him, afraid this might just be another nightmare. Something new but no less frightening.

His gaze jumps to her face.

She startles back a step, sure she could never have dreamed the expression in his eyes. Not in any nightmare, at least.

He hobbles the last step inside before collapsing on the bench she keeps just inside the door. The sodden bag slung over his back is unceremoniously dropped to the floor; his crutch clatters after it a moment later. He simply stares at her, as if he’s dying of thirst and she a glass of water. It makes her blush, and she looks down.

The door thuds quietly shut in the silence between them.

Surreptitiously, she pinches her leg through her skirt, not sure if she’d rather it hurt or not. It stings, much like one of Ben’s nips, and her eyes can’t help but dart back up to him. He’s still just staring at her.

Hesitantly, she steps closer, and his good arm raises slightly. It’s as if he wants to reach out, but isn’t sure he deserves it. Deserves her. A tinge of fear creeps into his eyes, souring the hope and relief that had been there a moment before, and that, at last, tells her this is not a dream. He’s never been afraid of her, in her nightmares.

Another step, and his trembling hand is close enough to take. Another, and she’s there, in front of him. One of her hands grasps his; the other cups his cheek as he tilts his head back to hold her gaze.

Breath shudders out of him in a long sigh as she touches him and his whole body sags, eyes finally closing with the faintest, saddest smile tinging his lips. His chin drops until his forehead is pressed to her stomach. His injured arm wraps awkwardly around her waist and she leans forward until he doesn’t have to stretch quite so much. Her own hand cradles the back of his head now, holding him close.

A crack of thunder splits the air outside, but neither of them jump at the noise. The rain is certainly louder now, growing into a proper storm. She thinks vaguely that he might want to find some dry clothes, but he shows no signs of wanting to move.

She doesn’t want to move either.

She’s still half afraid that, if she moves, he’ll be—

He’ll be gone, again.

Trapped, again.

Dead, again.

She shudders faintly at that.

His hold tightens ever so slightly, as if he heard her thoughts.

Finally, he speaks, voice hoarse with emotion, with exhaustion, with disuse and pain and relief. It’s so faint, she almost doesn’t hear it over the rain. She wouldn’t have, except somehow, even after so many years, she’s still attuned to his voice.

“My girl.”

Her shoulders slump and she clutches at him, not caring as the wetness from his clothes, or perhaps from his tears, slowly seeps into her skirts. She realizes her own cheeks are damp as another clap of thunder sounds, just overhead.

_No, Master Storm,_ she thinks. _This man is mine._


End file.
